It's almost that time again — the end-of-year celebrations that lighten and brighten the dark days of winter. However, along with all the festivities comes a whole lot of excess in the form of increased electricity use, extravagant purchases, and food and paper waste. While it’s fun to decorate our homes, spoil our loved ones with gifts, and host lavish gatherings, these actions can take their toll on the environment.
The good news: it’s still possible to have a meaningful and fun holiday season while minimizing your environmental impact. From LED lights to eco-friendly feasts, we’ve gathered some great ideas to help make this holiday season — from Thanksgiving through to New Year’s Day — memorable and sustainable.
Food
Arguably, the feasting part of the winter celebrations is huge, and it can be easy to forget about sustainability when planning extravagant holiday menus. You may think that to source the variety of ingredients needed, you have to buy them at the supermarket where many items get shipped in from faraway places. You’ll be glad to know there are better options available.
Below we list a few suggestions for creating delicious holiday meals and treats while avoiding buying habits that contribute to the rise of “industrial food” and increase transportation emissions.
- Support your community’s growers and farmers by shopping local. (The food comes fresher with a smaller carbon footprint.)
- Buy gifts and all the trappings of the season from local businesses. This keeps your money in the community, bolstering the local economy — which benefits every resident.
- Select organic produce grown without synthetic pesticides and fertilizers made from fossil fuels.
- Choose grass-fed meat as it’s healthier for you, tastes better, and reduces the amount of grain needed to feed livestock. (Heavy grain consumption increases greenhouse gas emissions.)
- Get adventurous with the bounty of seasonal produce available. For example, enjoy myriad varieties of squash, earthy mushrooms, and winter fruits like persimmons.
- Cooking not your thing? Support one of your local eateries by making a reservation for your holiday meal! Many restaurants are struggling to stay afloat because of the pandemic and welcome your business.
Decorations
According to the Center for Global Development, all the holiday lights in the U.S. use more electricity than some less-developed countries use in an entire year. If you believe there’s no such thing as too many lights or decorations, read on for a few tips on dressing up your home and yard for the season with less impact.
- Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) are 80-90 % more energy-efficient than incandescent lights. Moreover, they last longer and save you money on your electric bill.
- Go one step further in energy efficiency and buy solar-powered LED lights.
- Connect your lights to a timer to turn on at dusk and off at bedtime.
- Exchange tinsel and plastic ornaments with homemade decorations. Craft unique ornaments and mantle displays from nature with evergreen branches, pinecones, and berries. Popcorn and cranberries or dried orange slices and cinnamon sticks strung together to make beautiful garlands.
- Create a one-of-a-kind centerpiece for the holiday table by filling a bowl with pinecones, pomegranates, red and green apples, and nuts, then top with a bow.
- Host a holiday décor swap with your friends and neighbors. This is a fun, social way to bring home some new-to-you holiday gear without spending a penny while passing on any unused decorations and lights you may have lying around.
Gifts
Many of us have had to rush out to buy a last-minute gift without considering price or suitability much. Ideally, holiday gift-giving should be about sharing the season instead of mindless consumerism that taxes our natural resources, and maxes out our credit cards, with items often ending up in a landfill. For gift giving, it really is the thought that counts. We’ve listed some ways to help reduce our consumption while marking the occasion with a gift.
- To minimize your holiday footprint, shop at craft fairs, farmer's markets, and locally owned small businesses.
- Look for eco-friendly, ethically sourced gifts made with recycled materials, produced locally, or by fair trade.
- Reduce gas use by shopping close to home. Take public transportation if possible or carpool with a friend and try to do all your gift buying on one day to avoid multiple trips.
- Consider gifting vintage and recycled books, clothing, sports equipment, and toys.
- Give experiences instead of material presents. For example, a membership to a local museum, or a gift card to a theater or restaurant is typically well received. This type of gift also benefits the recipient’s community at the same time.
- Create your own gifts. If you’re artsy, crafty, or handy in the kitchen, you can make memorable gifts the special people in your life will cherish much more than a store-bought item.
- Make a donation to your family members' or friends’ favorite non-profits in their names.
Paper
Holiday wrapping paper is one of the biggest culprits of seasonal waste, with paper cards coming in a close second. Instead of buying rolls and rolls of colored paper that may have originated in an overseas sweatshop and gets destroyed in an instant, consider the following ideas:
- Give used materials a second life. Use kids’ artwork, old calendars, magazines, posters, and maps, for example, as wrapping.
- Re-use delivery boxes and add bows and ribbons to create festive packages.
- Gift bags or baskets are a great alternative and can be used year after year.
- Make your own holiday postcard to eliminate the need for an envelope. Better yet, send electronic greetings.
- Use the cards you received last year to make gift labels.
- If you must buy wrapping paper, avoid the plastic or metallic kind as it’s not recyclable.
Christmas Trees
If you celebrate Christmas and you really want to decorate a tree but are concerned about the environmental impact, read on. There are those among us who decry plastic trees. Then there are others who oppose cutting real trees as that’s not always environmentally sound either. (The debate rages on both sides.) Below we share best practices for choosing a Christmas tree and how best to dispose of it.
- Artificial trees get a bad rap because of the length of time it takes for the plastic to break down. But if you already have a fake tree, use it and enjoy it guilt-free for many years to come!
- If you are in the market for a tree, but you don’t want to support the feeling of real firs, look for a used plastic one (and the ornaments to hang on it) at a thrift store or flea market. Buying used is a great way to recycle and reduce spending while you’re at it.
- If it absolutely has to be real, look for a farm that employs organic and sustainable growing practices, like planting new trees to replace those cut and not using chemical pesticides.
- Better yet, get a potted live tree that you can replant in your yard or in a park and enjoy your “Tannenbaum” year-round.
- Another recyclable option is to rent a living Christmas tree. After the holidays, you return your tree to the nursery where it continues to grow and contribute to oxygen production in the forest.
No matter what shape your year-end festivities take, you’re now armed with ideas to make this year’s celebrations more sustainable and less wasteful while keeping the fun factor high. Happy Holidays!
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